Kullervo Symphony: Segerstam / Helsinki PO.Isokoski, Hakala

Jean Sibelius: Kullervo op.7

Tommi Hakala, baritone
Soile Isokoski, soprano

YL Male Voice Choir
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Leif Segerstam, conductor

Digital Recording: 09/2007

Hybrid SACD
SACD Surround 5.0 / SACD Stereo / CD Stereo
(playable on all SACD and CD players)

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra has a long and triumphant association with the music of Jean Sibelius, having premièred under the composer's baton almost all of his symphonic works. In this release, they perform, under their longstanding chief conductor Leif Segerstam, Sibelius's early choral symphony Kullervo. The work is based on the legend of Kullervo in the epic Kalevala, which tells the mythic history of the ancient Finns. The great success of the 1892 première in Helsinki - Sibelius conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic - turned out to be the breakthrough of the great Finnish composer's career who became a true national hero.

The sung parts in the third and fifth movement are performed by native speakers: the famous Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski whose Sibelius Orchestral Songs album on Ondine (featuring the Helsinki Philharmonic/Leif Segerstam) won both a BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Year Award and a MIDEM Classical Award in 2007; the acclaimed baritone Tommi Hakala, who won the 2003 BBC 'Singer of the World' award; and the internationally reputed YL Male Voice Choir, which in the year of this release looks back on 125 years of history and many commissions of Sibelius's best-known choral works.

Recorded in DXD, this hybrid SACD provides for an ecstatic sound experience of this haunting music. This release completes the acclaimed Sibelius Symphonies Cycle with Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, which was hailed as "a major Sibelius event" by ClassicsToday.com.

booklet with liner notes written in English, Finnish, German and French and the song lyrics in the original Finnish and in English.